Journalists to be expelled from Libya; Bahrain deports 2

New York, April 6, 2011--More than20
foreign journalists were told that they would have to leave Libya within 24
hours, National Public Radio said today. NPR reported that Libyan
authorities asked journalists from different international news outlets to
leave the country. The media outlets include Britain's Channel 4, CNN, Fox News,
The Independent, Italian TV, ITV, Le Figaro, Los Angeles Times,
The Times of London, NBC
News, The New York Times, RAI, RTL, and The Sunday Times of London. The government has also decided to not issue new visas for
journalists who wish to cover the unfolding conflict, NPR's Lourdes
Garcia-Navarro reported from Tripoli.

On Tuesday, Bahrain deported two
journalists working for an independent daily, continuing a weeks-long campaign
of obstruction and intimidation against media. Meanwhile, attacks against
journalists were also reported in Egypt, Yemen, and Lebanon.

"The journalists in Tripoli are already
operating under severely restricted conditions, and now the government is
trying to remove them entirely at a time when the presence of the international
press is crucial," said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, CPJ's Middle East and North Africa
program coordinator. "We have documented upward of 450 violations against the
media in the region since January alone, including the killing of seven
journalists; the numbers speak for themselves."

On Tuesday, authorities in Bahrain deported
Al-Wasat's managing editor, Ali al-Sharifi, and columnist Rahim al-Kaabi,
both Iraqi nationals, according to news reports and CPJ
interviews. Maryam al-Shrooqi, a columnist at the daily, told CPJ that to her
knowledge the government gave no reason for its decision. She added that al-Sharifi
was only appointed managing editor on Monday, after his predecessor and two
other senior employees stepped down in an effort to
save the paper. Obeidli al-Obeidli, who was appointed editor of Al-Wasat by its board this week, declined to
comment on the deportations.

In Egypt on Thursday, men in plainclothes
attacked Ali Saeed, an editor at a magazine published by the Egyptian Radio and
Television Union called Radio and TV.
Saeed said that four men punched and kicked him as he was leaving Khorshid's
home in Cairo. He told CPJ that in March he published an interview with Etemad
Khorshid, the widow of former head of Egypt's General Intelligence Directorate
Salah Nasr. In the interview, Khorshid revealed crimes allegedly committed by
former intelligence officers and Safwat al-Sharif, the speaker of the upper
chamber of parliament and the chairman of the former ruling National Democratic
Party. The four men said, "Consider this a message to the two of you," meaning Saeed
and Khorshid, Saeed told CPJ.

In Yemen, the independent weekly Al-Nidaasaid that a shipment
of its recent issue for Taiz, the country's third-largest city, was seized at a
security checkpoint south of the capital, Sana'a, on Monday. Al-Nidaa called
on the Interior Ministry to return all the confiscated copies. Local media also
reported that police seized
3,000 copies of another independent weekly, Al-Ahali, en route to the
southern governorates of Ibb, Hadramaut and al-Mahra. The Yemeni Journalists'
Syndicate condemned the confiscations.

In Lebanon on Sunday, demonstrators in
the southern city of Sidon attacked journalists who were covering a protest against
the sectarian political system in Lebanon, a local reporter told CPJ. Mohamed al-Zaatari, a correspondent for the English-language
Daily Star, told CPJ that protesters beat him and destroyed the camera
of Amin Shaoumar, a photographer for the satellite news channel Al-Manar. Al-Zaatari
told CPJ that he and his colleagues were attacked because the assailants did
not want them to witness infighting among the demonstrators.

On Tuesday, Syrian authorities released
George Baghdadi, a correspondent for the Spanish news agency Efe, according to news
reports. Baghdadi, a Syrian national, was detained on Friday while covering
protests in the northern coastal city of Latakia. CPJ was unable to determine
whether authorities in Syria continue to hold a number of journalists who had
been detained in recent days, including Amer Matar, Doha Hassan, and Mohammad Dibo.